I rode my bike out to Lamy yesterday, about 8 miles south. It’s a tiny little town with a railroad depot, dining car restaurant, and railroad/history museum. I started a conversation with the director of the museum, and he immediately mentioned that they are looking for volunteers. When he found out I’m getting my MLIS degree, he exclaimed “That’s exactly what we need! Someone to catalog our library!” So I got a tour of the collection, mostly historical books about trains. They mostly have books and a few videos, and no kind of organizational system whatsoever. Of course, against my better judgment my inner cataloger was reflexively inching towards the books, murmuring “must catalog and apply subject headings…” It wouldn’t even take all that much time to organize it in a very basic way, but for now my better judgment prevailed and I politely declined. If I have some free time later in the summer I may head back to Lamy.

In the meantime, I have started my internship at the Georgia O’Keeffe Research Center/Library. I really enjoy working with Eumie, and she is grateful for my “expertise” with automated ILS systems (I realize that’s redundant, but it just sounds silly to say “ILSs”). Eumie started out working at MOMA and is quite active in the ARLIS community. She is a great contact to have here, and even mentioned wanting to add a librarian position in the research center (fingers crossed, and drooling a bit). Though I haven’t worked with the Ex Libris Voyager system in the past, I figure it’s similar enough to Millennium that I should be able to figure things out. Of course, I’ve never automated a serials and acquisitions system from scratch, either. That’s the learning curve – a daunting but interesting challenge.